>> "inside washington" is brought to you in part by the federal association of employees, proud to make the government work. >> production assistants for "inside washington" provided by albritton communications and "politico." >> we have to pick ourselves up. we have fought our way back. and we know in our hearts that for the united states of america, the best is yet to

come. >> this week, the post-election rubio. >> i still wish i had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction. >> and where do we go from here? >> mr. president, we stand ready to work with you. >> the republicans take a look at their game plan. >> i think republicans have done a lousy job of reaching out to people of color. >> an amazing campaign. let me be clear. i did not bill that. you build that. >> also a look at ballot initiatives, including legalizing pot. >> this is the best day of my life. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

>> it was a long, anxious night for a lot of people in this town and across the nation, but then the networks called ohio and you knew it was over. the president won 93% of african-americans, a 71% of hispanics, more women than romney. he won 52% of voters under 34. half the independent voters. 54% of those who make over $100,000 a year. first we will hear from the president. >> i believe we can lead this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggest. we are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions. >> we will get to the campaign and mitt romney in a minute, but first listen to what john

boehner said after the election. >> mr. president, this is your moment. we are ready to be led. not as democrats or republicans, but as americans. let's rise above the this function and do the right thing for our country. >> later john maynard told diane sawyer he is the most reasonable, responsible person -- john boehner told diane sawyer he is the most reasonable, responsible person in washington and the president knows that. the fiscal cliff looms at the end of the year. will we reach a compromise before then, charles? >> i do not think it will be a comprehensive compromise. i think they will be able to patch something together. i think they will be able to agree on it true tax reform sometime next year. i think they will get passet the cliff if -- the cliff.

if he insists on raising rates, he will be stymied. >> what is the message? >> it is a mixed message. i think we all agree the corner stone of the president from message is we raise taxes on those earning over $250,000. mitt romney pledged to repeal obamacare. these are the essential points of their candidacies. i think he can point to that. but at the same time, he has to deal with the republican house and john painter has to deal with the republican house. john boehner -- he is not being humbled by saying that he is the best that the president has in the republican congress. >> does the president have a mandate out of this election? >> he does not have a mandate, but he has a lot of momentum. he got beat up day after day for

four years. the people said they want you to stay in office and continue your presidency. he does have some leverage going into his presidency. people are with him on this thing, especially the issue of raising taxes, taking away the benefits people on the high end of the scale, seeing their rates go up. but that is not why he 1. he -- that is not why he won. in his speech, he said collectively we can do things together. that resonates with people. people want to believe that is where they can take this. they did not get that from the opposition. the 47% notion -- that is important to his presidency. >> nina, break it down for us. >> i do not think he has a

mandate. i think the republicans and democrats both have a mandate for compromise. when you heard from republicans -- it is like mitch mcconnell who said his job was to see that obama is never reelected. so, he has an edge year. he does have leverage. but it will be a long haul. he does need partners. >> rich mcconnell is on record as saying that -- mitch mcconnell is on the record as saying that he knows that the election makes some people think that the republicans are going to roll over. that does not sound like compromise. >> your definition of compromise is rolling over and excepting higher tax rates. that is the democratic definition of compromise. i would never suggest bias.

the president ran -- i will say it -- the most negative campaign. he did not run on his record. he could not. he did not run on a program. there is one thing he got a mandate for, and he now has a mandate to raise the top tax rate on two percent of the population by four. ? that is the smallest mandate in american history. >> can i say something? >> no, not until i am done. this is true. i am not going to get into this for meridian -- >what the republicans will agree to come up brainer came out with -- agreed to, john boehner came out the day after the election saying that he would agree to raise revenues. there is a difference between rates and revenues. this obsession with race is

something that republicans will resist. >> there is one of vicious truth. you cannot get rid of that just by getting rid of the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. nor can you get us out of this by getting rid of all deductions and lowering the rates. you have to have some pain here for everybody. >> colby? >> this is a show of record. i want to make sure the record is clear on negativity and mitt romney. let us not forget, last summer when the democrats started, we had the republican primary. in that republican primary, the talk about venture capital versus vulture capital? that came from mitt romney.

who talked about being picked over by bain capital? rick perry. the talk about weathervane mentality? was that david axelrod? no, that was john huntsman. the republicans laid the groundwork for the work the democrats did. >> mark? >> yes, is there a question? >> no. >> i will respond to it and say when you win, you define the victory. that is the role of american politics. ronald reagan won a lowly landslide with no mandate in 1984. wasn't morning in america? there was a bear in the woods. walter mondale -- and he won 49 states. that is when tax reform became the centerpiece of his administration. >> ok, let's dig into the

election. >> whether i have earned your vote or not, i have listened to you, i have learned from you, and you have made me a better president. >> at a time like this, we cannot risk partisan bickering. our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the citizens work. >> an extremely gracious concession speech by gov. romney. romney lost the state where he was governor, the state where he votes, mass., some pundits have egg all over their faces. what made the difference with this, mark? >> when you run a good campaign, give credit to the campaign. there was an enormous effort. people disparaged the ground game. it was super. is surpassed anything we had seen before. and the president voiced that campaign. at the same time, in a year when americans were furious at

pennsylvania avenue and wall street, the republicans chose an investment banker, a private equity, a cayman islands, a swiss bank accounts, by and for clothes businesses. at a time when you needed a chris christie, a guy who will have a shot and a beer with you, and talk to people to get their rent money together, but mitt romney was not it. all of this admirable qualities and his gracious concession speech -- >> chris christie is not exactly the guy you want to raise after this election, the bear hug for obama. some people might have called that a lot dance. that is extremely disturbing. i do not want that image in my mind. he will be quarantined for a couple of months. i agree with mark.

obama ran a brilliant campaign. he did not have a record. and he succeeded. he did extremely well. and he is right. i would say mitt romney is a good and decent man and who -- would have made a good president. he was not a good campaigner. i think he was weakened by the republican primaries, weakened by the 47%, and in the end he had really bad luck. a week before the election he was ahead in just about all the polls by a lot -- >> no. >> i think it was pre-empted in the last week. i am not sure he would have 1. >> i do not think he was ahead. but when we left here last week, mark and i looked at each other and we said, now we will see whether the vaunted ground game is really their. the vaunted ground game turned out to be a mega ground game.

one person i know, this obama operatives sent out an e-mail to her friends and said, don't despair. this was not good, but we registered 10,000 obama voters this big. that is an the question is, can you move the operation to another candidate? to another election, an off-year election? can you move that to the dnc? if not, they can be right back where they were in 2010. >> let's stick with this for now. >> one thing on this election night, you had a lower turnout of blacks, latinos, women, people with disabilities. i left your last week and i thought he would have 236 electoral votes.

i was low on that. there was a keen sense of peril going into this election. and what the consequences would be if the republicans won the white house. not anti-romney, necessarily, but given what they were standing for, this was not a matter of changeup office. you that people who had the perception they would be a real threat to people. that is the reason why i saw the turnout of people, young and black widows i had never seen -- >> in dc. >> in d.c. >> in florida, where we think there was a voter suppression effort, the african-american vote went from 11% to 15%. >> mark? >> two point. not to tap dance on mitt romney's campaign, but what was

the bold idea of the romney campaign that would survive his candidacy? barry goldwater energize the thousands of people. he gave his party and new direction. george mcgovern did that. but i just do not think there was. once you do not have a bold idea, the candidacy is in peril. >> governor romney survived several primaries, tough debates to get the nomination. there is a lot of second- guessing. i know, he wrote about it today. >> he introduced to the nation this idea of a more strict constitutional conservatism. however, i do not think they ought to go around complaining about choice of candidates. they threw away senate seats that were absolutely slam-dunk republican in indiana and missouri, and the last cycle they throw away a slam dunk republican seats in maryland,

colorado, and nevada. so, the left and the right of the party and all of its wings made -- made mistakes in choosing candidates. romney was not a great candidate. he came out of the open primary process. it was the only one in the field to was remotely presidential and that is why he got the nomination. >> president obama to 71% of the hispanic vote. if you were taking a look at the republican party, would you not start with them, mark? >> i would. i would also start with the asian vote. republican party is increasingly an older, wider, mail party. -- older, whiter, male party. the republican base is moving from its own home to the rest come to the funeral home. and the democratic base is

moving from their room, maybe eventually to a home of their own. that is the difference between the two parties. >> there was a statistic that was just incredible. if you look at the white vote from 10 years ago, it was 81%. now it is down to 72%. we are headed to a very different country and the republican party thinks if they just repackage themselves -- even on immigration -- it will be ok. >> recently in the new york times, it was written that the white vote drops 2% every year. >> everyone talks about this and the impact on the romney campaign. the debate where romney moved to the right of rick perry on the question of immigration.

that is not where it happened. he got off the train back in february when jan euribor -- jan brewer endorse them. the architect of the law that says if you are white, you are all right. if you are brown, show me your papers. that resonated throughout the country. back in february, with that endorsement. it was great for the republican primary. for the general election -- there was a reaction from hispanics. and even marco rubio cannot correct the problem. they have a deeper problem. they have to deal with the george wallaces of the republican party. >> charles?

>> and the demographics, the idea of republicans being white, i think, is wrong. it is true they have problems with african-americans, single women, and young people. those tend to be liberal. with hispanics that are naturally more conservative, religious, a catholic, it requires a change in policy on immigration. it can be done in one stroke. once it is done, we will not be speaking about the demographic issue. we will be talking about ideological issues. >> all right. let's talk about the new congress. >> i would not have been able to do this without your unbelievable support. you, my friends, stood with me when others tried to buy this election. >> that is tammy duckworth.

she defeated joe walsh, the tea party favorite. women did very well. elizabeth warren, claire mccaskill, and so forth. >> 20 women in the senate now, and what is interesting is the republican number goes up from five to four. the democratic number comes up to 16, which i think does reflect the larger problems in the constituency wired to the republicans. you see these women who are winning not because they are the daughter of or the widow of, not appointed. they are fighting their own political careers and it is rather remarkable. >> let me ask you a question. we will see where it goes. what happens if john kerry becomes secretary of state in massachusetts? scott brown? >> i think they have to

consider that. scott brown lost. he is still a viable. the question is, who would be -- the with the democrats put up if john kerry leaves? >> he ran in an impossible state. i think elizabeth warren is going to be one of the real stars of the new democratic congress, and i can see her in national politics, at the presidential level, really soon. the other really interesting result, i thought, was that initiative in massachusetts -- it is not exactly a party issue. to have legal assisted suicide legalized in the most liberal state in the country, it failed. i think that is because doctors opposed it. >> nina.

>> i want to go back to the question of the hispanic vote. i think it would go a long way if republicans did sign-ons to an immigration reform up law. it would not go all the way. the pugh center has shown that hispanics by and large are very hard workers that believe government has helped them succeed. they do not oppose government in the sort of traditionally anti- government way of some of the west, for example. i think it will be harder than republicans think. >> once again, i want to remind everybody there is still a republican majority in the house. >> it is not personalities. is not marked rubio. it is policy. -- it is not marco rubio. is policy. the obama health care act

extends to 9 million hispanics that would not have had that. and marco rubio cannot change that. you can have the governor of new mexico's stand next to you, but he cannot extend health insurance coverage to people. >> in the house democratic caucus, there are 61 women, 10 asian americans, of 43 african- americans, 94 white males. 94 white male minority in the democratic caucus. which is more reflective of the country? >> alright, we have a look at ballot initiatives. >> this is a great day for quality in america. >> voters in maine, maryland, washington gave the green light to gay marriage. minnesota rejected a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man

and woman. the legalization of pot. the world is changing, nina. >> it is. after losing proposition aids in california, democrats were devastated -- proposition 8 in california, democrats were devastated. people talk about marriage, love, commitment. they changed the message. they wanted what everyone else wanted and people understood that and they are beginning to succeed everywhere except the south. >> jerry brown got the tax in california. >> jerry brown did something for which he deserves credit. he was elected governor and he said i will not raise taxes unless i have the approval of the people of this date. to rescue the state's of california public school system, he went and said we need a tax increase. we need a tax increase of

billions. and they voted for ed. i say hat's off to him and to californians for stepping up. >> legalizing marijuana nationwide? >> hats off also for the date marriage issue to joe biden who stepped up and said -- for the gay marriage issue it to joe biden who stepped up and said he was born at. that set a tone for the president and the vice president of the united states to come out that way. and you have the opposition going the other way. >> five years ago, i do not think you would have thought 10 years it would be no longer an issue because it was generational. i think that was pessimistic. i think in 10 years, we will not even be speaking of it. it was a rough night for secured of's be -- for conservatives. we did lose the presidency. but we can still get high in

denver. >> let's give a shout out to the state of maryland. voters in maryland passed the dream that -- dream act. if you're qualified, you will have an in-state rate. >> last word? aspects [indiscernible] >> for a transcript of this broadcast, log onto -- >> "inside washington" is brought to by the american association of federal employees. for more information and membership, visit our web site.